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On September 15, 2010 Sonic Adventure was released on Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade service. I rarely fire up the Xbox 360 anymore, as most of my time is spent on my classic systems. In either case, I was excited to spend the $10 (800 microsoft points) and play this on the flat panel television.
Prior to purchasing, I searched for reviews. The first review from IGN was depressing. A whopping 3.5 out of 10. Here are some quotes: "Sonic Adventure is so fundamentally flawed that it borders on unplayable," "The controls themselves are another failure," and "Sonic Adventure, in hindsight, feels like a game thrown together in a panic."

Wow, could it really be that bad? No, the author Arthur Gies is just out of his mind. Either that or IGN purposely gave the game a low review to spur page views. Maybe both.

A little history. The Sega Dreamcast was the first system I ever got on launch day, in this case 9/9/99. Sonic Adventure was one of the first titles I purchased (a couple days late due to shortages) and I absolutely loved it. I've played through Sonic's adventure numerous times, and have played through the game in it's entirety at least twice. It's a terrific game. It's fast, it's colorful, the music is bitchin', and the controls are wonderfully twitchy. Back in 1999 I reviewed the game and said, "Sonic Adventure is the definition of fun."

And you know what? It still is. Not only is the game still a riot, and the best 3D Sonic game ever made, it has higher resolution textures and a faster frame rate (60fps compared to 30fps in the Dreamcast original). Arthur Gies must be smoking crack. Everything stated in his review is nonsense. The game is extremely playable, the graphic slook better than ever, the music still trounces modern games, and Sonic Adventure is extremely faithful to the original title. Shame on IGN.

Moving on, I was watching the awesome Lord of War (Nic Cage's last good movie?) and there is a rant about the AK-47. This immediately reminded me of Metal Slug for the Neo Geo. So I whipped together a quick parody, replacing the AK-47 bits with gaming references. Enjoy!